Your comments about not having to intentionally manage writes of objects indicates that you believe that the read/write/erase characteristics of flash memory are similar to conventional memory. Cells in flash memory can't be re-written without first erasing. Erasure occurs on block boundaries. You can only erase a block a certain number of times (typically in excess of 100,000). I find it convenient to think of flash as a very fast replacement for disk drives. Compared to disks, it has very fast read access, especially for random reads, but the block structured erase/write protocol look more like a disk drive. See <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory</a> for more.<br>
<br>Object persistence managers like GemStone, Glorp, etc, are still needed, but flash memory will definitely change the way we think about persistent storage.<br><br>-david<br><br>PS - I did a quick search to see if there have been any breakthroughs in flash other than price/density and didn't find anything. If anybody has more info on this, please pass it along.<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Jun 6, 2008 at 5:50 PM, John M McIntosh <<a href="mailto:johnmci@smalltalkconsulting.com">johnmci@smalltalkconsulting.com</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="Ih2E3d">On Fri, Jun 6, 2008 at 3:24 PM, Louis LaBrunda<br>
<<a href="mailto:Lou@keystone-software.com">Lou@keystone-software.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> A Smalltalk program running on a server with a large amount of flash memory,<br>
> could run without the need for another form of database. The flash memory would<br>
> be in addition to the normal memory, with both available as RAM. The flash<br>
> memory would not look like a hard disk replacement.<br>
<br>
</div>You might want to do some reading about GemStone<br>
<a href="http://www.gemstone.com/products/smalltalk/" target="_blank">http://www.gemstone.com/products/smalltalk/</a><br>
<br>
It does much of what you discuss. They have a free version so you can<br>
explore more how it behaves.<br>
<br>
</blockquote></div><br>